


After Frost

by 51stCenturyFox, neifile7



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Double Penetration, Multi, Threesome, mmf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 14:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox, https://archiveofourown.org/users/neifile7/pseuds/neifile7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It wasn't pretty, exactly, but it was homey enough, and it was safe. At least until Jack finds them again.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Thank you to amand_r for beta work!</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Frost

_"You go to school, you go to work, you go to bed. You eat. You get kissed. You have sex. You fall in love, or you don't. But it's work and bed and food and sleep. Two weeks in Spain, and Christmas and birthdays and weekends. Every single day until it stops. That's the world. That's the world I live in. That's all there is._

_...how much more is there?"_

[Gwen Cooper](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqR3dG96AqU)

 

  
Gwen stalked into the biting chill, jeans tucked into heavy woolen socks and wellies. Rhys was at the 24-hour superfoodcentre Asda-whatever-it-was in the nearest town and Anwen was with her grandparents in Swansea for the fortnight. It wouldn't do for her parents (or his) to see where they lived. It wasn't good security, for one thing. And for them to see _how_ they lived? They'd pitch a fit. No central heating, a telly with rabbit's ears to get a signal (international shortwave radio for the real news) and alien tech in plain hideous view but up where Anwen couldn't reach it. It wasn't pretty, exactly, but it was homey enough, and it was safe. Safe.

She could see her breath in the dark as she drew back the hatchet to split logs for the stove - like the breath of a medieval dragon. "Puff," Gwen said to the trees as the wood splintered under steel. "...the magic dragon," she sang, under her (visible) breath. She'd forgotten the rest after "lives by the sea", so humming had to suffice.

When she heard a muffled cough behind her, she nearly dropped the heavy hatchet on her foot; she spun, flung it into the half-cord of wood stacked under the tarpaulin next to the cutting stump _seven o'clock, holster-check, fast turn_ and aimed her sidearm.

"Jack," she said sharply.

He'd raised his arms as she raised her gun, and they lowered both in unison. She bit her lip, cursed under her breath.

"Gwen, I'm..."

She squinted at him. "You alone?"

"I'm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm alone."

"How did you find us?" She asked. _Us,_ she'd made sure to say. Not that she expected a real answer. _Why the hell can't you die? Where are you from, anyway? Where did you go, and why are you back now?_

"DNA locator," Jack said, pointing to his wrist strap.

Gwen nodded silently (and wasn't that creepy – Jack keeping _tabs_ on them, like an intergalactic Google map with pushpins), and picked up the hatchet, turning her back to him. She split another frosted hunk of log and hefted half of it, as Jack took the other and followed her into the bothy. She gestured at the smouldering woodstove with a nod and Jack pushed in the split timber.

"Where's Rhys?" Jack asked.

 _You tell me._ "Supplies. He'll be back in a bit."

Jack nodded, rubbed his hands together, and sat. "Cosy joint."

"It's not much. But we're off the grid here," Gwen checked the kettle on the stove, her voice grave and matter-of-fact. "Things happened. There were threats, so... we had to leave the city." She pulled out the teabags and poured water into two mugs to steep. "Sorry, Rhys is fetching more milk."

"It's all right as is. It's perfect." Jack took the mug with a grateful smile.

Gwen sat on a chair across from him. _Where did you go? Why did you leave us?_ "So," she said.

The sound of Rhys' van on the ice was loud, but Gwen didn't stir. She took another sip and glanced up at Jack beneath her fringe. She turned her face to the door at the crunch of frosted leaves and Rhys flung the door open.

"I'll need a hand, Gwen," he said, before he saw the figure on the quilt-covered settee. "Jack! Back, are you?" He stilled, eyes sweeping, taking in the coat, the slightly hunched posture, and Gwen tensed. They hadn't discussed Jack for ages. Rhys stayed frozen another long moment, then set the crate he was carrying against the door to hold it open and frigid air rushed in. "Visiting for tea?" he asked, conversational but guarded.

Jack opened his mouth and set the mug down. He paused. "Yeah. Well, longer than a visit." He stood, tentatively extending a hand, and Rhys hesitated a fraction before grasping it. Another beat passed before he clapped Jack on the shoulder.

"I'd say you should make yourself at home, then. Such as it is. Not posh, is it?"

Jack nodded, patted Rhys' back in return, and after they'd dragged in a sack of potatoes and bags of crackers and sausages and milk and bread, finally took off his coat and laid it over the back of the tiny settee.

"Where you been then, mate?" Rhys asked, a little aggressively. He poured three shots of Jameson's (glass tumblers -- cheap, like all their essentials), and thrust two of them at Gwen and Jack.

"Everywhere," Jack said. He swirled his glass a moment and took a long sip. "Nowhere in particular."

"Not an answer, mate," Rhys said. "I reckon you can sing for your supper for once. Drink up, I'll put the stew on."

Jack was silent through two long pulls of his whiskey. His voice stayed low and taut with the first few anecdotes of far-flung stars and bars ( _and stories and cyphers,_ Gwen thought), but it grew looser and louder as Rhys peppered him him with questions. Plates and pots deployed, Rhys plopped down on the worn arm of her chair.

"So I bopped that Sontaran guard on the back of the neck with a hammer –"

"Oh, see, now you're just taking the piss."

"No, really, they have this weak spot, all you gotta do is creep up behind 'em –"

Gwen kept quiet, watching the glow build in Rhys' face, and recalled with a kind of ache how once he'd wanted to scrapbook their adventures. All that pride and excitement; they'd lived with the fallout so long that they'd forgotten. Gwen saw, too, how the lines about Jack's mouth softened as he spoke, and felt the knot inside her easing just a bit.

Rhys never stopped touching her -- a hand stroking her nape or thigh lightly, even as he kept his eyes on Jack; and that warmed her, too, a familiar weight anchoring her against the old tug of longing.

Strange, because for once, none of Jack's stories were about sex.

They ate their stew and chased it with a few more shots, just for luck, just to draw out the stories a little longer.

Finally, Gwen scooped up the last of the plates, turning to hide her drooping lids and stifled yawns. Rhys stretched extravagantly in his chair and yawned widely. "Right, then. More to come, eh? Time to turn in, though. Leave it, Gwen, you're knackered."

"Can I...?" Jack ventured, pulling his coat forward and starting to ball it up on the edge of his seat.

"Not on that. God. We've just got the one bed," Rhys said, blowing out the hurricane lamp. "Or Anwen's cot, but that'd be a trick fitting you into it. Go on, it's a big bed, we're all tired, and the babe sleeps with us half the time anyway."

Gwen gave him a look, and left Jack to wash up in the tiny loo while she rinsed the bowls and Rhys dried them.

"Rhys..."

"Shh. It's got wooden arms on it, the settee."

"I know." Gwen couldn't think of anything else to say, then.

"Well, it's fucking hard as rocks. Just because he can't die doesn't mean he should want to." Rhys snapped a damp tea towel at her thigh and she laughed, low and into his shoulder as he pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. They decamped to the sleeping alcove to find Jack on the far end of the great bed, pushed up nearly against the wall.

"See," Rhys whispered. "It's fine, yeah?" Gwen nodded, exhausted, and pulled off her socks and jeans, leaving on long underwear and a long-sleeved tee shirt. She slid under the duvet and held her arms out to Rhys, who followed, tucking himself against her.

"You have room?" she whispered.

"I'm all right," he said, sliding his hands around her waist. He slid his leg between her thighs and planted a solid kiss on the edge of her collarbone.

"Don't. Jack's...he's –" she began, but heard only deep, steady breathing behind her.

"He's asleep," Rhys murmured into the top of her hair. His hand crept between her thighs, scritched along the waffle-texture of her long-johns and pressed against her, then reached up and pulled the front down, slipped his hand inside, reached with his fingertips. "You're wet," he whispered. Gwen took his wrist in both hands and shook her head. "Shh," Rhys said. "Shh."

Gwen shut her eyes then, and threw her head back as he smoothed a thumb along her clit. She lifted her bed-pressed hip as Rhys pulled at the long johns and slid them down, and yanked off his own track bottoms. She climbed atop him slowly, trying not to shake the bed. Gwen ran her fingers up the length of his cock, pressed forward, and Rhys teased her with his thumb. She slid her knees upward a tick, then slowly positioned herself above him and sank down on his cock. She hitched her hips to the side and back and smiled at him in the near-dark as she began a steady grind - just the way he liked it.

"Oh," Rhys breathed, as she moved back and around and down again, pulling the length of her body to his. The bed shifted to her left and in the dim of the room, Gwen saw Jack roll over. She froze.

"S'okay," Rhys breathed. "It's just Jack, right?" He smiled at her, a little possessive, a lot turned on, but mostly, dear god, so _giving_ , always so giving.

Rhys put his hands on her hips and pressed, just holding her there, and she sank down again, all the way. She felt a warm hand - not Rhys' - ghost along her hip and then the small of her back, and she shuddered and fought the impulse to pull away. Jack's fingers played up her vertebrae as if he were counting them. She braced herself on her hands and sat up, slowly.

Rhys fussed a little with the edge of her tee shirt at the front, tugging and finally lifting the thin material, and after a second's pause, she raised her arms and let him pull it off.

Jack's hand slid upward along her back and then fell away, and the bed dipped as he moved behind her, between Rhys' legs. Rhys' eyes flicked over her shoulder, then back to her face with another small smile. _Your call, sweetheart._ He rolled his hips, and Gwen gasped, stilled. A huff of breath warmed her nape. She reached back, fumbling a little as she found Jack's fingers and settled them on her waist. He squeezed, once, then ran both hands along her ribcage and up, up to graze nipples, so much more sensitive since the birth, and (finally, oh god) cupping her breasts. She rose up, fractionally.

Rhys pulled at her hips again, his eyes alight, and it was almost too much - Rhys inside her, Jack's spit-slicked fingers at her nipples, her back pressed to the smooth hot plane of his chest, and -- oh. Not his finger, there at the base of her spine. Gwen gasped, collapsed forward onto her elbows, and Jack shifted, ran hands back down her spine, curving over her arse and spreading the cheeks. She shuddered again, then lifted, offering herself.

Rhys made a half-strangled noise and pressed hard up into her, and from behind she heard a chuckle, half-pleased, half-incredulous and wholly aroused.

A moment later a cool slick touch, more slippery than before, grazed along her crease, slid over Rhys' balls and then traced upward again. Gwen pressed her forehead to Rhys' chest, heard his heart race with hers as Jack slipped in a finger, then two, slowly working inside her.

Rhys bucked gently. "I can feel that," he groaned.

"How is it?" Jack asked quietly, _not taking any of this for granted,_ Gwen thought as she felt him move again, felt the press of his cock _right there_. "Okay?" Jack queried softly, and waited. Gwen pushed back silently in assent, her hair sliding down Rhys' chest, and Jack pushed in, slowly, giving her time to adjust, stroking her hips to still the tremors shivering through her.

"Careful," Rhys warned. "Be –"

"God," she breathed, interrupting. "Oh. Oh my god," she said, as he began to move again with her. Rhys captured her hands in his and pushed upward; Jack closed his own hands over her hips, and somehow, after a few errant and graceless thrusts, they found a rhythm. Gwen shook at the pressure, the mingled male scents, the alternating pulses inside her, the thought of both of them at once. Surrounded.

For the space of another dozen strokes -- awkward, maddening, _sweet_ \-- she contained them both.

"Good, Gwen?" Jack asked, and the ragged sound of his voice almost broke her. He thrust forward again and came first with a soft moan, almost apologetic, and pulled away, teasing her gently and then faster with his fingers as Rhys followed with stuttering thrusts and curses. Gwen arched hard, made a noise even she didn't recognise, and tumbled after with a laugh.

"She does that," Rhys said as they all stretched out, panting and sweat-tipped on the bed. "Laughs. You get used to it." Gwen elbowed him with a giggle and Jack smiled and squeezed her hand as he got up from the bed and padded away.

Gwen rolled over and placed a damp palm on Rhys' chest. "I've never loved you so much as I do right now," she said. Rhys leaned up and kissed her soundly as Jack returned, a warm, wet flannel in hand.

They cleaned up in silence, and Rhys stood to head for the loo. "See a man about a horse-"

"Don't ever say that in the Horsehead Nebula, Rhys. It means something really, really... well, it's complicated to explain," Jack said, kissing Gwen's forehead, then her cheek.

"You know why I'm back," Jack whispered, his lips at her shoulder. "Again."

Gwen lifted her arm and slicked back the damp shock of hair at his brow. "I know," she answered, simply. "I'm glad."

"We have work to do," Jack said.

"I knew that too." Gwen lifted the duvet to welcome Rhys back to the warmth of the bed when he returned, and wrapped an arm around his waist as Jack's encircled hers. "We'll start tomorrow."

Gwen lay in the darkness and listened to their breaths alternating, weight and counterweight, and felt her own centre of gravity shift and settle. She followed them down into sleep.

 

  



End file.
